Left-wing media has 'issues' with President Obama

For the better part of four years, progressive media has had President Barack Obama’s back.

Now that he’s won re-election, it is faced with a choice: Should the left continue always to play the loyal attack dog against the GOP, blaming the opposition at all hours of the news cycle for intransigence? Or, should it redirect some of that energy on the president, holding him to his promises and encouraging him to be a more outspoken champion of liberal causes?

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POLITICO's Turn the Table

In the days and weeks following Obama’s victory, progressive voices, primarily in print media, have made efforts to push the president on key parts of the unfinished liberal agenda - including climate change, drone strikes, troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, the closing of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, civil liberties and gun control.

The New York Times editorial page launched a series titled “Goals for a New Term,” calling on the president to implement stronger gun control laws and shutter Gitmo, which he had pledged to do during his first year in office. The tone of the editorials has been sharply critical: On guns, the editors suggested Obama lacked courage. On Guantanamo, they slammed his administration for deciding “to adopt the Bush team’s extravagant claims of state secrets and executive power, blocking any accountability for the detention and brutalization of hundreds of men at Guantánamo and secret prisons, and denying torture victims their day in court.”

David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, sought to put similar pressure on Obama on the issue of climate change. “For the most part… the accumulating crisis of climate change has been treated as a third-tier issue,” Remnick wrote. “[I]n his acceptance speech, Obama mentioned climate change once again. Which is good, but, at this late date, he gets no points for mentioning. The real test of his determination will be a willingness to step outside the day-to-day tumult of Washington politics and establish a sustained sense of urgency.”

Guest-hosting on MSNBC’s noon program, “Now With Alex Wagner,” The Nation’s Ari Melber criticized Obama’s lack of transparency in the use of drone strikes to target terrorists, including some American citizens. “That secretive approach is at odds with the commitment that Obama made during his first campaign for the presidency when he advocated the rights of due process for all, even accused terrorists,” Melber said. “Today, there’s no public process to determine whether the right people are targeted under the drone program, and drone attacks have increased substantially during Obama’s first term.”

In conversations with POLITICO, some of the left’s most influential voices in media said that, with the concerns of re-election over, they intend to be more critical of the president’s performance and more aggressive in urging him to pursue a progressive agenda as the clock ticks on his last four years in office.

“Liberals in the media are going to be tougher on Obama and more respectful at the same time,” Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker’s chief political commentator and a former speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, told POLITICO. “He was the champion of our side, he vanquished the foe….. [but] now liberals don’t have to worry about hurting his chances for re-election, so they can be tougher in urging him to do what he should be doing.”

Readers' Comments (367)

I, for one, an glad that the progressive "press" does NOT coalesce around an issue so that all the venues fall into line. Group think is not wanted or needed.

As for their criticism of the President, have at it. The President is a slightly left of center pragmatist, who takes the long view, and his pragmatism will usually predominate. And that's fine with me. With the exception of Afghanistan, I have no quarrel with him.

Once again "politico" is completely off the mark. Left media? what left media? The only left leaning programs on the 24hr news networks are on msnbc from 8-11. They constantly complained about the no public option in Obamacare and are partly responsible for the republican takeover in 2010 because of their constant complaining. The msnbc morning show is a rightwing, fox news lite program. CNN is worthless, they constantly pushed the false narrative that Mitt Romney and President Obama were neck and neck during this last presidential race. Fox news is completely biased, claiming Mitt Romney was going to win in a blowout.

“Liberals in the media are going to be tougher on Obama and more respectful at the same time,” Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker’s chief political commentator and a former speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, told POLITICO. “He was the champion of our side, he vanquished the foe….. [but] now liberals don’t have to worry about hurting his chances for re-election, so they can be tougher in urging him to do what he should be doing.”

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!......Yeah.....sure.......Including continuing the lie that Barack Obama and the rest of the democrats are "populists?"

I am amazed that "media," includes journalistic enterprises like The New Yorker and The New York Times which, by definition, are supposed to priotritize the search for truth......Instead we see that their priority is the political fights that use the lies and manipulation of the ruling class.....Not any problem with this analysis, POLITICO?

Barack Obama must always put his party first.....that is the requirement of being part of the Democratic Party.......When the left media talk about that and include themselves in that discussion, I will finally know pigs can fly!

Our nation is in deep trouble for many reasons, but one of the biggest one is that we do not have honest journalists prepared to challenge the elitist ruling class.....The function of our republic relys on such vigilant referees of the truth because the leaders know they do not have to function honestly and transparently.

Really??? brutalization???? Come on guys. We've bent over backwards for these loser, pos, terrorist, murderers. We worry over their "spiritual" health and provide them with their kind of reading material, prayer rugs, etc. We worry over their physical health and built a soccer field and walking trails, and give them their choice of diet from a variety of menu items. We worry over their mental health and provide counselors. Give me a break. We should treat them as they would treat us, but we aren't inhumane and we aren't terrorists and we aren't worthless pos's.

It amazes me how the mainstreet press wants to focus their ideas and talking points against progressives and the" liberal media". The liberal media as Dylan Calls it is basically the same as the mainstreet press like such prestigious tabloids as the New York Times. The not mainstreet press do journal investigations where the mainstreet does not. Mainstreet has an agenda but first they need to focus on being journalists

Progressives lack cojones when it comes to criticizing Barack Obama. Their firepower is used to destroy their conservative enemies of every stripe because it's in their DNA. This country doesn't need any more progressives or conservatives but we DO NEED Americans willing to make a difference in ALL our lives. Enough with MSNBC, The Nation, FNC, and Rush Limbaugh.

Let me remind the thread.....the media is the profit making corporate entities that need to feed the consumers and have the access to the news makers.......They serve the elite for their personal financial position.....

It is also ideological, but mostly it is fear of financial loss, not living in the class they are in........Elitism........

That is why we do not get the truth, we do not get what the republic needs to be well informed and healthy.

That is why campaigns like Obama's cost a billion dollars.....the advertsing bills that most of that billion dollars goes to allows the people interviewed in the article likely live in hig class neighborhoods and attend those cocktail parties we all would never see becasue we are not in that elite class......

M O N E Y.....love of it is the root of evil, friends....and the ruling class along with their friends in the media, have their system set up to preserve it.......Obama, Boehner, Reid, Pelosi.......the status quo game goes on........

The article refers to MSNBC as "the Left's largest megaphone." This is incorrect, since the other networks of the Left such as CBC, NBC, ABC, CNN have much larger viewership. Now it is quite arguable that MSNBC is the nuttiest of the 5 networks.

For me, I think global warming is the most important long-term issue. We have made progress in the last several years, but that must continue and accelerate if possible. Our children and grandchildren will be affected by it, and much of the rest of the world is ahead of the USA on global warming.

Not to minimize the other issues, but Obama's legacy would be significantly enhanced if he lights the spark that sets us on the right path to address global warming.

So everything we have said about the left wing media is actually true. And after doing the dirty work for this administration the MSM want to do exactly what conservatives were demanding them to do. I find this very interesting.......especially because they now will accept the role we concervatives were colled numerous times. Racists and bigots. I am expecting those two terms to now be fascionable, accepted, and glorified by those who a few years ago were outrage by the mere fact that there were people in America that demanded some government accountability.